« The Phaedrus and its later ethical reception »

Résumé
The seminar looks in detail at the image of the winged chariot in the Phaedrus. I present a case that it represents the threefold cognitive capacity for ideal, universal, and particular thought which constitutes the soul and which serves it in what Socrates says is its essential purpose: to care for what lacks soul; that erotic desire arises only within the embodied soul, and insofar as its focus is on particular bodies; that it is thus not continuous with any desire the intellect has to be nourished by the Forms – although its paradoxical nature may act as a ‘summoner’ experience, helping the intellect to recall non-bodily Forms such as Beauty. Induction assists the subsequent process of recollection pursued by the philosopher.

Lectures recommandées :

commentaries
• Hermeias, On Plato’s Phaedo. (Extract on the chariot supplied from the English translation.)

• Hackforth, R. 1952. Plato’s Phaedrus. Cambridge. (Extract on 246a-249d supplied.)

• Robin, L. 1933. Platon, Oeuvres Complètes. Vol. IV.3: Phèdre. Paris. (Extract with text, translation and comments on all of 244a-257b supplied.)

​article
• Kamtekar, R. 2006. “Speaking with the Same Voice as Reason: Personification in Plato’s Psychology.” Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 31: 167-202.

Lectures complémentaires :

​more commentaries (extracts on 246a-249d supplied.)
• De Vries, G. J. 1969. A Commentary on the Phaedrus of Plato. Amsterdam. 

• Heitsch, E. 1997. Platon, Phaidros. 2nd edn. Göttingen.

• Rowe, C. J. 1986. Plato: Phaedrus. Warminster.

• Yunis, H. 2011. Plato, Phaedrus. Cambridge.

​studies
• Barney, R. 2016. “What Kind of Theory is the Theory of the Tripartite Soul?” Proceedings of the Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy 31: 53-83.

• Helmig, C. 2012. Forms and Concepts. Concept Formation in the Platonic Tradition. Berlin / New York.: pp. 65-71.

• Lorenz, H. 2012. “The Cognition of Appetite in Plato’s Timaeus.: In: Plato and the Divided Self, ed. R. Barney, T. Brennan, & C. Brittain, 238-58. Cambridge.

• Moss, J. (2023). “Against Bare Urges and Good-Independent Desires: Appetites in Republic IV.” In: Psychology and Value in Plato, Aristotle, and Hellenistic Philosophy, ed. F. Leigh and M. Hampson, 67-81. Oxford.

• Sheffield, F. 2012. “Erôs Before and After Tripartition.” In: Plato and the Divided Self, ed. R. Barney, T. Brennan, & C. Brittain, 211-37. Cambridge.

• Tsouna, V. 2012. “Is There an Answer to Socrates’ Puzzle? Individuality, Universality, and the Self in Plato’s Phaedrus.” Philosophie Antique 12: 199-235.